NOTE: The show is presented at Stockholm University of the Arts. Address: Valhallavägen 193, Ettan.

Obedience to gravity is the biggest sin

                                              Simone Weil

Angry Birds is a Finnish mobile game in which birds battle pigs… Close your eyes and you can hear them—the black-throated loon, the raven. They have flown through the darkness from the Land of a Thousand Lakes to give voice to their rage. Now they are here-the messengers of vengeance.
For in the heart of the oppressed, a fire lies smouldering-one that will consume us all.

Five forgotten exchange students from Finland have arrived to claim retribution, to scramble for work, to demand justice. Through mythology, swan maidens, battle chants, dove women, and theatrical duels, they take the audience on a journey through minority experience and seething anger-beyond the Finland ferries, across the heavens, and, if all goes well, into the freedom of wings.

Parempi kymmenen lintua metsässä kuin yksi kädessä.

This show is presented as a collaboration between Konträr and Stockholm University of the Arts

Language: Swedish, Finnish & Norwegian
Address: Valhallavägen 193, Ettan

This performance is made possible thanks to Konträr’s subscribers.
Become one of them.

NOTE: The show is presented at Stockholm University of the Arts. Address: Valhallavägen 193, Ettan

Obedience to gravity is the biggest sin

                                              Simone Weil

Angry Birds is a Finnish mobile game in which birds battle pigs… Close your eyes and you can hear them—the black-throated loon, the raven. They have flown through the darkness from the Land of a Thousand Lakes to give voice to their rage. Now they are here-the messengers of vengeance.
For in the heart of the oppressed, a fire lies smouldering-one that will consume us all.

Five forgotten exchange students from Finland have arrived to claim retribution, to scramble for work, to demand justice. Through mythology, swan maidens, battle chants, dove women, and theatrical duels, they take the audience on a journey through minority experience and seething anger-beyond the Finland ferries, across the heavens, and, if all goes well, into the freedom of wings.

Parempi kymmenen lintua metsässä kuin yksi kädessä.

This show is presented as a collaboration between Konträr and Stockholm University of the Arts

Language: Swedish, Finnish & Norwegian
Address: Valhallavägen 193, Ettan
Booking: 100SEK. If you become a subscriber at Konträr here, you can book ticket’s to all of our shows. Subscribers-booking for Angry Birdies opens May 7.

This performance is made possible thanks to Konträr’s subscribers.
Become one of them.

A warm welcome to our audience tests and dress rehearsal of RATHAUS by Freja Hallberg! Read more about the show here.

Note – this event is free and open for everyone, both our Konträr subscribers and non-subscribers. This is a perfect opportunity to visit us if you are curious!
The foyer opens 15 minutes before start.
Location: Östgötagatan 33

28 april 14:00 – audience test
3 may 18:00 – audience test
14 may 13:00 – dress rehearsal

Language: German with English subtitles

A Lecture Performance all about Authenticity, Truth, Fiction and the Collective Identity

“Just be yourself, be true to yourself, follow your dreams and reach for the stars”. This is the mantra of a generation that prizes individuality as the ultimate expression of freedom. But who is this “self” that you think you are? How did you come to be what you think you are? What makes you you? And what happens when we venture outside the concept of the “unique self”?

Using text, video archive and soundtrack, this performance-lecture takes the audience through a telling of the collective processes, big ideas and vivid memories shared by Gob Squad throughout more than 30 years of working together. The group lifts the lid on their participatory performances – where the boundaries between audience and performers often disappear completely.

Soon after the lecture begins, Gob Squad leave the authority of the lectern behind and audience members take their place. The physical identity of Gob Squad shifts amongst audience members who collude in the re-telling and re-construction of stories, interviews and scenes. Identities shift as their bodies stand in for other bodies.

The collective identity unfolds via a playful, experiential perspective as more and more people get involved. Using a technique Gob Squad call ‘remote acting’, what begins as a straightforward lecture ends up as a moving meditation on the nature of the self. The ‘remote actors’ move in the paradoxical terrain between surrender and self-determination, loss of control and the desire to rule. It’s an experience poised between curiosity, courage, readiness to take a chance, and the charged relationship between infantile freedom and a shared responsibility for everything taking place.

Visit gobsquad.com for future tour dates and to join our mailing list.

This performance is made possible thanks to Konträr’s subscribers.
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OBS: Eventet hålls på Höjden Studios i Östberga

Baltic Take Over är en scenkonstfestival som varje gång äger rum i en ny stad. Den 8–10 maj 2026 kommer festivalen till Konträr i Stockholm, och är en del av den internationella, samtida dansfestivalen STHLM DANS. Festivalen initierades 2023 och kurateras gemensamt av Konträr, New Theatre Institute of Latvia, Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Estland) och Lithuanian Dance Information Centre. Den presenterar verk av konstnärer som huvudsakligen är verksamma i de baltiska länderna.

The event focuses on switching between roles while working in the arts and adjusting to various expectations that accompany them. Wearing multiple hats, stepping into the role of the producer for another artist, additionally working as a curator in a new context, suddenly being part of different kinds of decision-making. We’re curious to discuss shifts in power relationships and how roles form in collectives, how to align priorities in collectives in a field that operates on immense motivation and how to then navigate tension that can emerge when people’s individual “drives” don’t always perfectly line up in identical ways.

The event is aimed for visiting and local cultural professionals to meet each other and exchange thoughts during this laboratory. Activities will be led by various cultural workers and artists, soup will be offered by höjden studios!

——THE SHOW STARTS IN BJÖRNS TRÄDGÅRD!

Last year’s hit is back! A Swedish Midsummer Night’s Dream returns to Konträr. The team behind the Christmas show is back with a bold and unpredictable reckoning with the most Swedish of holidays, on the brightest night of the summer.

Herring, schnapps, and “Små grodorna.” Sex, vomit, and Swedish falukorv.

As tradition dictates, we gather in Björns trädgård with accordion music and a dance, continuing on to a midsummer lunch and dancing up in the barn. It’s funny, absurd, and deeply relatable. But even on the brightest of nights, the darkest darkness lurks.

Language: English

“It’s funny, absurd, and full of simmering bitterness, racism, desire, and humiliation. What isn’t meant to be shown is shown, because on the brightest of nights, the darkest darkness lurks.” etc.

“It’s hysterical, funny, and sad. A skillful piece of storytelling that dares to trust its audience. And it’s wonderful to be given that trust.” etc.

“It is without a doubt hard to imagine a more effective verfremdung of the most Swedish of holidays.” — DN

“Dark, chaotic, and spot-on when Konträr strips the most Swedish of holidays bare.” — DN

This performance is made possible thanks to Konträr’s subscribers.
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NOTE: The show is performed in Tranströmerbiblioteket, booking at https://biblioteket.stockholm.se/evenemang

Baltic Take Over is a performing arts festival that takes place in a different city each time. On 8-10 May 2026, Baltic Take Over will map its way through Stockholm, to Konträr and as a part of the contemporary dance festival STHLM DANS. Initiated and co-curated by New Theatre Institute of Latvia, Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Estonia), and Lithuanian Dance Information Centre since 2023, the festival presents performances by artists primarily working in Baltic countries. 

Held in Human II: Rose in Your Brain
What does it mean to be in a body? A poetic exploration of thought in virtual and physical space.

Something is changing, I can no longer make sense of what here means, as I increasingly feel that while I am here, I am also always a little bit there. There, where my thoughts are, there where my imagination roams — and not only mine, but someone else’s as well, simultaneously. It is real. I am always inside a body, in this form that makes me visible and touchable; yet I am also always in a space, where no one can see me. It is a space of thought, an ever-present network, a movement. I am here, held in human, Rose in Your Brain.

This performance is a second iteration of the artistic research project Held in Human, exploring presence, attention, and space through collective storytelling. It unfolds as a poetic space for thought—a choreography of thinking and a three-dimensional reading experience.

Liis Vares is a choreographer working between performing and fine arts. Her practice focuses on spatial relations and shifting conditions of presence across physical, digital, and XR environments. She teaches improvisation, inclusive performance, and performance art at the University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy and the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her recent collaborations with Taavet Jansen and XR developer Norbert Pape include the mixed-reality works HELD IN HUMAN II: Rose in Your Brain (2024) and STILL MOVING (2024). She also continues her long-term project Anthropologies of Space.

Taavet Jansen works in hybrid spaces connecting the virtual and the physical. Using body movement, digital technologies, text, and generated imagery, he explores audience engagement in mixed-reality environments. He teaches creative coding, practice-based research, and visual theatre at the University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy and is currently pursuing a PhD at the Estonian Academy of Arts. His ongoing project Held in Human, developed in close collaboration with Liis Vares, investigates the artistic potential of hybrid spaces.

Language: English
Content warnings: VR headsets used during the performance
Suitable for ages: 7+

This performance is made possible thanks to Konträr’s subscribers.
Become one of them.

Baltic Take Over is a performing arts festival that takes place in a different city each time. On 8-10 May 2026, Baltic Take Over will map its way through Stockholm, to Konträr and as a part of the contemporary dance festival STHLM DANS. Initiated and co-curated by New Theatre Institute of Latvia, Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Estonia), and Lithuanian Dance Information Centre since 2023, the festival presents performances by artists primarily working in Baltic countries. 

Oblicus weaves together intimacy, vulnerability, and artistic ambition. It is a self-portrait of two individuals navigating the tensions of togetherness and separation, exploring the longing to merge while preserving one’s sense of self. This work emerges from a desire to inhabit a shared space—a time that is neither mine nor yours, but ours. Inspired by the Lithuanian polyphonic tradition of sutartinės, Oblicus transforms that logic into movement: layered, asynchronous, and interdependent.

Oblicus is both an intimate duet and a broader reflection on the contemporary condition: the impossibility of complete fusion, and the beauty of trying.

Artist duo IevaKrish consists of internationally working dancers/choreographers and set designers Ieva Gaurilčikaitė-Sants (LT/LV) and Krišjānis Sants (LV). Their practice uses a hybrid of choreography and scenography to create implicitly immersive and tacit experiences. Communication plays a crucial role and is the content of their work which varies in a wide range of form and media – from direct guided experiences between artist and an audience, to elaborate interactive events bringing together larger groups in spectacles of dance, sound and shared food. Their works have been presented in Latvia and abroad. In 2021 IevaKrish received Latvian Dance Award as Best Choreographers. Both run a dance organisation TUVUMI that aims to create a shared art environment between Latvia and the Baltic as well as the Baltics and Europe.

This performance is made possible thanks to Konträr’s subscribers.
Become one of them.

Baltic Take Over is a performing arts festival that takes place in a different city each time. On 8-10 May 2026, Baltic Take Over will map its way through Stockholm, to Konträr and as a part of the contemporary dance festival STHLM DANS. Initiated and co-curated by New Theatre Institute of Latvia, Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Estonia), and Lithuanian Dance Information Centre since 2023, the festival presents performances by artists primarily working in Baltic countries. 

CLAP & SLAP
Balancing self-defense and political protest

The performance CLAP & SLAP explores a complex and paralysing tension which emerged between Lithuania and Belarus, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th 2022. This tension is examined through historical, political, geographical, and social lenses, alongside the personal experiences of Agnietė and Igor. Being politically engaged in the events of the Belarusian revolution in 2020, Igor participated in protests in Belarus, while Agnietė participated in demonstrations in front of the Belarusian embassy in Vilnius. Igor was forced to leave his homeland; Agnietė made the decision not to collaborate with Russian-speaking artists. 

Today, meeting on the same stage, these two artists make an attempt at a dialogue that seems impossible outside of art: dialogue between fear and the necessity of action, between collective and personal responsibilities, between personal tragedy and geopolitical catastrophe. How can we maintain a balance between the need for self-defense and the risk of mirroring the very aggression we are fighting against? Can we respect each other’s differences, uphold personal beliefs, and protect individual freedoms without infringing on others’ rights? This is the line of questioning, to which Agnietė and Igor expose themselves and their audience. 

The performance is followed by a talk with Igor and Agnietė, moderated by Dmitri Plax.

The performance has been selected for Aerowaves Twenty26. The performance received the Special Jury Prize at the Sirenos International Theatre Festival (Lithuania, 2025).

Igor Shugaleev, a Belarusian-born choreographer and performer based in Warsaw, merges physical theatre, endurance art and activism. His acclaimed performance 375 0908 2334 / The Body You Are Calling Is Currently Not Available (2021) stands as a visceral protest against Belarusian state violence and has toured widely across Europe. 

Agnietė Lisičkinaitė, a Lithuanian choreographer, performer, and educator, bridges contemporary dance, politics, and civic action. Her participatory solo Hands Up—presented at festivals across Europe—explores gesture, solidarity, and protest. A co-founder of Be Company with Greta Grinevičiūtė, she advocates for dance as social practice and currently teaches at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. For Lisičkinaitė, choreography is activism—a medium for dialogue, resistance, and transformation.

This performance is made possible thanks to Konträr’s subscribers.
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Administrationen sets up a fully functioning film studio in the room and records a feature film live. The audience follows the filming process and may even become part of it themselves as extras. The room they are sitting in will, in post-production, be transformed into a cabin in Hälsingland, prehistoric nature, the Aspudden bookstore, and the command bridge of a spacecraft through the use of technology and AI. If the extras begin to imagine these environments within themselves during filming, that is fine, but it is not the point. They are participating in an epic film about what makes life real — about our longing to truly feel alive.

”After the theatrical run, the recorded material will undergo extensive AI-driven VFX and post-production. The final film will appear as if it were made with a billion-dollar budget.” 

– Michael Riley

Administrationen is an independent theatre group in Stockholm founded by Elin Skarin, Hampus Hallberg, and Emli Brulin. Administrationen works with theatre, film, and performance, and develops productions in collaboration with various artists.

Language: Swedish

This performance is made possible thanks to Konträr’s subscribers.
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